PLANS for a multi-million pound leisure complex in Crewe have been rescued.

A new developer, based in Chester, has now been selected to build on the derelict site at Eaton Street.

A panel of councillors recommended that Liberty Properties Plc be adopted as the new developer, with Alfred McAlpine as the preferred alternative.

The selection will be put before a full meeting of Crewe and Nantwich Borough Council next Wednesday with the recommendation that ten pin bowling be considered within the project.

It is hoped the leisure park, which will link up with the new Morrisons development in the West End, will create around 150 jobs.

The news buries two years of disappointment after original developers Parkridge pulled out of the deal last year before a brick was laid.

This time around the council employed consultants Dunlop Heywood to find suitable bids and to advise the council.

Six developers put forward a dozen bids between them for the derelict railway land, each outlining alternative blueprints for the nine acre leisure park.

The council's executive director of environment and development, Derek Cook said: 'A number of proposals from developers were presented by our commercial agents.

'The selected developer submitted a number of alternative schemes to be considered by the full council. I am not at liverty to discuss the details or the price of the project at present.'

The failed Parkridge project, which was to have been called Signlas, would have included restaurants, a bingo hall, nightclub and nine-screen cinema. But as it came to nothing, the fiasco sparked an investigation into how the council lost the deal.

The local authority were labelled 'suckers' by one councillor, Brian Silvester (Conservative) over the way it was beaten into slashing the price by #2 million at the last minute.

The investigation has now led to a new rule whtich means all future acquisitions or disposals of more than #500,000 whill bedecided by the full council. But the inquiry was branded a whitewash by Cllr Silvester who has threatened to call in the District Auditor.